Would Finland's joining NATO be a violation of the 1947 Treaty of Paris?

Question

Articles like this one by the Atlantic Council suggest that Finland and Sweden are going to join NATO and give up their neutrality. However would Finland's joining NATO not violate the 1947 Treaty of Paris? To be more precise PART III. MILITARY, NAVAL AND AIR CLAUSES. Also as mentioned in the answer by Fizz, Article 3 is restoring the Peace Treaty between the Soviet Union and Finland concluded in Moscow on 12 March 1940, where there is also Article 3 which could be interpreted as forbiding Finland to joining NATO.

Answer 1

I'm still looking for something more detailed, but more specifically, (according to two different sources 1 2) in the 1990s Finland has already unilaterally denounced part III (art. 13-22) of the 1947 treaty, which imposed limits on the size of its armed forces and various other limitations like even not buying any civil aircraft with German components (art 21). They already had done some reinterpretation in that regard in the 1960s with respect to article 17 that had barred from having any missiles, reinterpreted then to allow them to have at least anti-aircraft missiles. (Likewise the other provisions against guided missiles and torpedo boats could be easily interpreted as being violated by the Hamina-class missile boats, which also carry some lightweight torpedoes nowadays.)

It's also worth noting that the 1948 friendship treaty with the USSR actually contained foreign policy limitations that would have been much more relevant to your question (because e.g. "Article Four prohibited Finland from ‘establishing or joining any alliances that are targeted against the other high party’"). But it was replaced in 1992 by a new treaty with Russia. In the aftermath, in 1995, Finland joined the EU, which as you probably know also has a common defense clause in article 42.7.

The NATO treaty in itself doesn't mandate any size of armed forces, or what kinds of weapons to have, so on the face of it, it adds nothing in terms of violations of the 1947 treaty. Conversely, it's usually assumed that NATO countries need to spend at least 2% of their budget on the armed forces, but the 1947 USSR-Finland treaty doesn't put any limitation on the Finnish armed forces budget- or spending-wise. (Also the 2% spending is not in the NATO treaty either, being the result of a guideline.)

So the answer in relation to that part of the 1947 treaty really depends on what kinds and quantity of weapons Finland would acquire in view of or after joining NATO, assuming that Russia still intends to hold Finland to the letter of the 1947 treaty, which isn't entirely clear to me (right now). I know they've recently warned Finland and Sweden not to join NATO, but I don't recall specific treaties [with Russia] being mentioned in that context.

As far as I can tell, the 1947 treaty is silent on other issues that may be entailed by NATO membership, like e.g. the stationing of foreign (especially US or UK) forces on Finland's soil.

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Ah, I actually missed something: the 1947 treaty also restores via its article 3 the earlier 1940 peace treaty between the USSR and Finland (minus articles 4, 5 and 6 of the latter)--treaty concluded after the Winter War. But that 1940 treaty also has an article 3 (restored through the 1947 treaty) that says:

Both contracting parties undertake each to refrain from any attack upon the other and to make no alliance and to participate in no coalition directed against either of the contracting parties.

So, since Russia says NATO is an alliance directed against it, I suppose Russia could raise the issue of article 3 of that 1940 treaty as being contravened by Finland joining NATO... although I haven't heard Russia making that specific argument.

Answer 2

It seems that Finland unilaterally renounced part of that treaty in the 1990s when the Soviet Union dissolved. And considering that the Ukrainian SSR was signatory, while the Russian SFSR wasn't, who is to blame them? Perhaps Belarus might have a complaint, they were signatories, too.

Answer 3

According to the treaty article 22, it can be changed only by the UN Security Council, so changes made by Finland, mentioned in previous answers, are invalid. So it's definitely a violation. By breaking this treaty, Finland is going back to the situation before the treaty, where it was in a state of war with Russia (USSR).